The memo bears the title “March Cost Cutting Initiatives.” It even talks about laying off Article 22.3 Teamsters. Click here to read more about it.

Click here to download the memo.

For now, the rumors have subsided, at least in part, as the company is backing off some of its more egregious propositions regarding the Article 22.3 employees. No doubt the volume of calls to the Local Union from concerned members played a part in that shift — one reason why now is no time to stop with the pressure.

We have seen and heard threats to our jobs and talk about guarantees being shredded by a company making billions in profit. One thing most UPSers don’t seem to be thinking about is the violation of our contract that has been happening for months now. I’m talking about the 20,000 jobs UPS is required to maintain under Article 22, Section 3 of the UPS Master Agreement, as well as the documentation they are required to provide:

The number of full-time jobs created under Article 22, Section 3 of the 1997-2002 and the 2002-2008 Agreements shall not be reduced. Within sixty (60) days of the ratification of this Agreement the
Employer shall provide the International Teamsters Union a report detailing and identifying the full-time jobs which will need to be maintained pursuant to this paragraph.

The deadline for the last wave of those 20,000 jobs was last August, but there has been no indication that this language has been satisfied. So how exactly is the company able to eliminate jobs when they have yet to prove they’ve met this obligation?

And why isn’t the International Union proactively engaged in distributing the above mentioned list to locals for a nationwide audit process to see exactly how far away the company is from its obligation? Without complete information, there is no way to verify the extent of these violations. The company can dissolve a position from one location then claim it has gone elsewhere, but without verification, we have no way of knowing whether those claims are true. It is the essence of a shell game — an ages old con.

Are you a current Article 22.3 full-timer who has been afraid your job might disappear? Are you a part-timer who hopes one day to have a full-time job? If so, UPS’ disregard for contractual obligations directly affects you. But again, it affects all of us who call ourselves Teamsters. We all need to care about this rampant violation of our rights, because taking away the rights of even a few of us diminishes the rights of all of us.

In the coming days and weeks, I hope to be doing even more to get my fellow members involved in ongoing efforts to stop the shell game. Hopefully, some of you will join me.

“In Germany, they came first for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
and then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
and then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
and then… they came for me… and by that time
there was no one left to speak up.”
- attributed to Martin Niemoller

This past week in the Willow Grove UPS hub, some disturbing things have been happening. While we’ve known for a while about layoffs, the new developments revolve around the company reportedly trying to redefine some key terms in our contract.

The company announced, on rather short notice, plans to layoff certain inside workers. While any layoffs are disturbing in their own right, these layoffs are structured quite differently than past staffing reductions. In particular, these layoffs have targeted higher seniority, Article 22.3 employees, who have been kept from their guaranteed work hours while lower seniority employees have been permitted to keep working in the same operation.

On Friday, February 6, 2009, several Article 22.3 workers were kept out of work in this fashion. Inquiries made to the Local Union were met with claims that the Union had no involvement in the layoff selection process, which is in itself a serious violation of contractual rights. Furthermore, Union officials maintained that they were “completely against” what was happening.

How did the company get away with laying off full-time workers while junior employees were allowed to work in the same operation? Good question. Maybe it’s because they attempted to redefine seniority by insisting that Article 22.3 employees are in a totally separate classification from any part-time employees (even when full and part-time employees are both doing the same exact work).

While that may seem like a gross violation of the terms or our contract, it gets worse when you find out the company also claims the displaced employees have no right to bump. And how do they get away with that? Apparently, they do it by claiming that each day laid off is its own separate layoff. You see, in our supplement, most laid off workers with seniority have the right to bump after a specified number of layoff days. If the company is only laying off for a day each week, they will claim the count of days laid off is reset every week, even if their intent is to maintain a reduced work schedule for several weeks at a time.

Perhaps the company feels this is ample justification to deprive Union employees of some of their most basic rights, but it’s pretty clear the spirit of the contract doesn’t mean what they want it to mean.

The question now is, what are we going to do about it?

I say “we” because, aside from concepts we’ve already discussed in this post like seniority and bumping rights, there is an equally important concept we all need to embrace for our Union to be as effective as it needs to be:

SOLIDARITY

Solidarity is the one word answer to any misguided Union member who feels that violations committed against other Union members don’t affect them. It’s the one word retort to anyone who sees a Union brother or sister being violated and responds by saying, “It’s not my problem.” And it’s the only effective way to answer injustice that will otherwise spread to effect all of us.

And it will spread. What you mistakenly believe is someone else’s problem today will someday become your problem, too. And that day may come sooner than you expect. The only way to be ready for it is to stand by your fellow Union members.

Otherwise, it may turn out the way it did for people like Martin Niemoller (quoted at the top of this post), who mistakenly believed it wasn’t their problem when the Nazis went after other groups of people.

As I type these words, I know there are people in our Union who believe that what’s happening to others isn’t their problem. Because they don’t see themselves in the line of fire right now, they keep quiet — maybe because they don’t think the company’s sights will ever be turned on them, or maybe because they’re afraid that by standing up for others, the company will target them next. Whatever the case, if we don’t stand by our fellow Union members, who exactly do we expect will stand by us when it is our turn to be targeted?

Management depends on this kind of foolish indifference and apathy. They hope we’ll selfishly let them pick off our brothers and sisters so it will be even easier to target the rest of us in the future.

Think about it — before it’s too late.

A former UPS package car driver, Carey would become the first democratically elected head of the IBT. He went on to lead the union in a successful strike against UPS in 1997, because of which he is credited with opening the door to thousands of new full-time Teamster jobs.

People have differing opinions of Ron Carey (as they tend to have of all leaders), but many of the accomplishments he had in his time leading our union cannot be dismissed, no matter your opinion of Mr. Carey. As we hear news of his passing, all union men and women should hold him in a place of respect for the things he did for our cause.

To read more now on Ron Carey, check out TDU.org

I’ve heard grumblings from several contacts across the country that there hasn’t been any evidence the company has filled the last round of 2,500 article 22.3 jobs (slated to be filled by August 1, 2008). There’s supposed to be a master list of these existing jobs available to the union. As of yet, I’ve heard no firm answer on whether we have that list or how to obtain it.

If you’re a Teamster working part-time at UPS wondering when (or if) your full-time job opportunity is going to come, you can make a call or write to your local union. Let them know you want to see the proof that UPS has lived up to its end of the bargain.

If not, maybe this guy might be able to help us out:

*Thanks to Tom for the heads up on the video

**I once quoted a statement from Norman Black (the media relations manager who appears in the above video) to a sort manager with whom I was discussing a grievance. He shrugged off Mr. Black’s statement. I countered that Norman Black was an official spokesperson for the company, so his statement (which favored the member I was representing) should count for something. The sort manager looked at me, smiled and said, “I don’t care what Norman Black says. He’s an idiot.” Interestingly, that’s pretty much how he looks in the video.

UPS has eliminated dozens of full-time Article 22.3 jobs in Washington State. In many cases, long-time full-timers are being forced to go back to part time.

The company eliminated nearly 40 Article 22.3 full-time jobs in Seattle Local 174 in the Boeing Field, Redmond and Seattle buildings. Six more full-time Article 22.3 positions have been eliminated in Spokane.

Under the contract, UPS is required to maintain 20,000 Article 22.3 full-time jobs. The company is not allowed to lay off any combo employees if the layoffs bring the total number of Article 22.3 jobs nationally below 20,000. There is no exception for “loss of volume.”

UPS is thousands of positions short of the 20,000 jobs required by the contract. The deadline for creating all of these jobs was Aug. 1.

Article 22.3 of our new contract obligates the company to provide a list of the 20,000 jobs that had to be maintained pursuant to the contract. With jobs shifting from place to place (in our local, some of the combo job vacancies have been shipped elsewhere), the only way to ensure that UPS is keeping its word is to see the details. I have asked for this information, but as of yet I haven’t seen it. Still, I encourage other UPS Teamsters to request some kind of verification on the required job creation and maintenance.

Read the full story and find out more about holding UPS to its word at Make UPS Deliver

A decade later Kelly’s successor, Mike Eskew, is announcing his departure from the world’s largest, most profitable package delivery company. Eskew’s successor, by the way, is a number-cruncher named Scott Davis.

When Jim Kelly left UPS’ helm in 1997, some of my union brothers and sisters joked that our victorious strike had chased him into retirement. After all, we’d just won an unprecedented contract that promised to alter the predominance of part-time employment at UPS, as well as offer generous pay raises that even included catch-up provisions for part-timers whose pay had lagged behind for years.

Mike Eskew, the outgoing boss, leaves on the tails of what many see as a different kind of contract negotiation. So here’s the question: Will Eskew’s departure be seen as the retreat of a beaten man, or as the triumphant exit of a champ who retired undefeated?

Additionally, aAn Article 22, Section 3 vacancy has also been posted, but is currently only open to eligible full-time employees.

Both bid sheetsThe bid sheet should be up on the board by PD-1 for the next three business days.

Note: The original content of this post has been changed to reflect the fact that the company pulled one of the bid sheets, explaining that it had been posted by mistake. There is currently only one posting for an Article 22, section 3 vacancy. Hopefully, for the sake of all those waiting patiently for full-time UPS job opportunities, there will be more openings posted very soon.